Stories, analysis, highlights, and everything Yankees from an up & coming sports journalist.

Yes Indeed

Last night the Yankees continued their recent string of inconsistency, losing 7-2 to the Detroit Tigers in the opening game of their four-game series at Comerica Park. Derek Jeter and Robinson Cano accounted for the only two runs the Yanks plated on the night, mustering the lone RBIs. Last night’s game may have been more appropriately titled, “The Justin Verlander Show.”

Verlander was a virtuoso, shutting down the Yankees with a brilliant 14-strikeout performance over eight innings of work. Ivan Nova on the other hand kept his winless streak alive, falling to 10-6. He only tossed 5.1 innings and let up seven earned runs on 11 hits on the way to the loss. Nova hasn’t won a game in five consecutive starts.

The boys from the Bronx didn’t do much better tonight, dropping a 6-5 decision to the Tigers, a ninth inning rally falling just short. Russell Martin clubbed an RBI double to plate Eric Chavez after Ichiro singled to bring in Raul Ibanez, but they couldn’t get that tying run – or potential winning run – across the dish.

In the seventh Ichiro doubled to bring home Nick Swisher, and Chavez smashed an opposite-field two-run homer in the fourth to highlight the Yankees’ night on offense.

Like Nova, starter Phil Hughes struggled. He was pounded for eight hits and allowed four earned runs in the 4.1 innings he pitched. In the fourth he all but lost command, throwing 42 pitches, laboring through the frame. Hughes now falls to 11-9 and his ERA – which was 3.96 heading into tonight’s action – is back up to 4.10.

The Yanks have now gone 9-13 since July 15; a losing record, although New York still sits atop the AL East standings at 63-46, four and a half games ahead of the Baltimore Orioles.

While the Bombers were getting bombed these past couple of nights in the Motor City, I enjoyed yet another little accolade. Well, something to blog about, anyway.

The YES Network has recently been featuring the “YES Network Games” during its broadcasts; a mini in-game contest in which viewers can tweet in questions to the announcers. If they pick your question, they will show it on TV (along with your Twitter handle) and the announcers have a half-inning to come up with an answer.

If their answer is correct, they get a point, and my guess is, whichever YES announcer has the most points at the end of the season wins. During the day yesterday I tweeted in my question:

Lo and behold, during the bottom of the sixth inning of last night’s game, my name and question appeared on the YES Network. I thought for a second I had Michael Kay stumped. He seemed a little unsure of himself.

But he came up with the correct answer, Jaret Wright, as did Meredith Marakovits and John Flaherty. I immediately attempted to tweet Kay back, trying to tell him to tell Flaherty that I met him in 2009. Flaherty actually came to my college (Mercy) and I met him and wrote an article about him for the student newspaper.

He must not have seen it though, because I didn’t hear back from him.

However, I did hear from a number of people who saw my name on TV. In fact, two of my friends, Mike and Sean – who coincidently enough are also local sports reporters – each texted me and told me that they saw my name on YES. Mike’s text was pretty cool:

“I see you made it on YES. You are the man. It was Jaret Wright. Funny that was your question. I was just thinking about that disaster of a series in the beginning of tonight’s game. I at least went to Game One of that series before things went downhill. Take care, A.J.”

This now marks the fourth time YES has used my name. On June 8 they used my tweet on their “Extra Innings” show after the Yankees squadoosh’d the Mets 9-1, and they’ve used my Facebook comments in 2009 and 2010. My good friend Virginia over at “Eat, Sleep, and Breathe Yankees” wrote on my Facebook wall,

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